HR BESTIES - Remotely Remote Working

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Today’s agenda:  Some subject lines to make sure your emails get opened (and shut!) Cringe corporate speak: Open Kimono Hot topic: Return to the Office  Remote vs. hybrid vs. working from the office  Why are companies forcing employees to go back to the office just to do Zoom calls?  Negotiating working from home Are employees more or less productive at home? Where are the numbers? Have conversations rather than mandates  Connect top level people with their employees  Questions/Comments: The junk drawer employee “Do not take advice from someone you do not want to be.” Your To-Do List: Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at https://www.hrbesties.com. Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: https://www.hrbesties.com/about.  We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto https://www.hrmanifesto.com Follow Bestie Ashley! https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod  https://www.instagram.com/managermethod https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/ https://managermethod.com Follow Bestie Jamie! https://www.millennialmisery.com/ Humorous Resources: Instagram • YouTube • Threads • Facebook • X Millennial Misery:  Instagram • Threads • Facebook • X Horrendous HR:  Instagram • Threads • Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Would you guys be surprised to hear that I was written up at work and in like a professional job? Yes. You? Lawyer Ashley? Well, it wasn't Lawyer Ashley. This was Sales Ashley. Oh. So those in HR will listen, and even those in sales will listen and know that sales sometimes can get an undue amount of attention from HR. And I knew about that. Before I went to law school and before I was in HR, I worked for two years in corporate sales. The first year was cold calling, that time cold calling chief financial officers. And liberal arts, Ashley, becoming cold calling,

Ashley, was a real turn of the skill set.. So in our job, this was early 2000s. And so we were really trying to get the attention of these executives. So like fax campaigns, phone numbers, how you use, you know, the phone system and get through the assistance to get directly to your prospect. I'd come early, stay late. But one of the main things that I was working on a skill set for was email subject lines. And to this day, it's key to try, you want people to open your email. And so you want to get people's attention. So I'm a hard worker. I was trying to do the right thing. So I was at lunch with a friend and colleague. And so

we were talking about, you know, great subject lines to get people's attention and, you know, sharing some of these practices. And I came back from lunch and decided to send an email to my team, which was all of us about 23 years old, cold calling, and with lists, top 10 email subject lines to get your prospects attention. Now we're going to CFOs and this was a time of like Sarbanes-Oxley things. So like, yeah, those things will get their attention, but you know what gets their attention more? Forward pictures of your wife with another man. No, you didn't. Stop. Alternatively, also compelling to open emails would be RE, I have your daughter in the basement.

Oh my God. So those were among the 10 on my email. Oh ma'am, absolutely not. My email subject lines that again, I thought I was sending this to my team as a joke. Suffice to say, everyone listening, don't actually send those email subject lines. It's not really biased. Just because you'll end up in spam. That's the only reason why, because you'll end up in spam. But so I thought I was sending that to my team. Well, like a lot of corporate America, managers, some of their duties can be just to oversee other people.

And so my manager's manager, manager, I didn't realize, she was also a recipient of every single, you know, sales account executive's team email. So basically the equivalent of the big boss was going through all the emails. And when she saw a list of top 10 email subject lines, she probably thought I had good initiative. And I did. But anyway, so I sent it to the team and chuckling like, you know, he, he, he, do, do, do, do, do, do. About 7.4 minutes later, there came my boss because her boss's boss had some concerns and wanted to talk to me about, about my email. The blood loss in my face when I realized that my funny joke wasn't perceived as funny by someone perhaps in power, but in the end they did think it was okay. So no real consequences other than me realizing very early on that lesson of the things you put in emails.

So I say these experiences I had working in sales have helped me tremendously to proactively anticipate issues from a legal and HR perspective. But you know, I would open that email. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking about like my future use of those. Oh, I know. Termination meetings. I know. Well, as I said, for, you know, for employee benefits enrollment, because those who have in the HR space, especially my benefits coordinators out there and audience, you're nodding along because how many emails have you sent and webinars have you helped just trying to help people understand their benefits options. No one is going

to open your email that says details about open enrollment, but there's some subject lines that you can send that have a little bit, a little bit more, more sauce. So, so be judicious, be judicious more so than I was at 20, 22, 23. Well, I'm trying to think what were some of the other ones, you know, I was like trying to think of some that I could use, you know? I mean, I think it other ones, you know, I was like trying to think of some that I could use, you know. I mean, I think it was like, you know, again, like the forward and I would include that in my thing because that's always the thing. Like forward, like I found naked pictures of you. And this was like 20 years ago.

Type levels of things like those type of aspects. And so that was, you know, the type of things that really get to a person's greatest fears and doubts. You know, I probably want to click on the most. So that was my my jokey, jokey, not not so jokey, jokey. Yeah, don't do that. Let's go ahead and kick off our meeting. Thank you so much for joining us, HR besties. for joining us, HR besties. So agenda for today, we are going to start off with some cringe corporate speak, and I'm going to take that one. And then we are going to move into our hot topic

of the meeting, which is all about return to office, right? So very controversial topic. And then of course, because we do have a hard stop, we will do our questions and comments before we have to go to lunch. And so let me kick it off then with cringe corporate speak. The cringe corporate speak for today is open kimono. So if you want to be sexist and racist in two words, use that in the workplace. I have a physical reaction when I hear it in the workplace. It is something that I've heard my entire career. And I don't know if it's because I've been in manufacturing, heavy industrials, production ops, like, you know, like things I don't know why, or I've just worked with a bunch of creepers, shout out creepers. But, but that one just kind

of, you know, can you Okay, so for those that are thinking, what's that I you have had the pleasure of never hearing that in your career. Lee, how do you tend to hear that in a sentence? It means real talk. Like, you know, we got to be really open about something. Let's be transparent. You know, I'm just going to lay all my cards out. I'm just going to put all the data on the table. Right. So let's just get open kimono about this topic. You know what I mean? Or, hey, let's let's be open kimono. And it's just like permission to basically open up your shirt and get naked is what that is saying. I mean, a subject line I should have had is, I'm about to open your kimono. People would go, do you want to open my kimono?

You know, that is an alternative. But Jamie, thoughts? I thankfully have never heard that. Really? Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes. I've thankfully never heard that.

I'm happy for you. I just knowing who I am, I probably would have called the person out, be like, no, Bob, no. Yeah. Bob is Bob would say that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is a Bob thing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. You know, you may want to bring it to that person's attention, but it's really cringy. Like, it is really cringy when you hear that in the workplace. Like you say, it's sexist, racist. And so the way I've heard it, I've also heard this in legal, like legal speak, like open kimono, like a deal potentially. Like if someone's talking about a

business deal, we're going to, to our point of when we give you cringe corporate speak, you know, we'll try to give you an alternative unless it's so bad that we're just going to say, just move off that entirely. But for a deal, what you're trying to say is, like you said, we're going to show all of our cards. We're going to show all the information proactively. We will put it out there so we're not going to waste anybody's time and we're going to be respectful to the other people. It's a few more words than open kimono. But I tell you what, it's a lot safer and a lot less expensive than that EEOC charge. That could be coming right from my U.S. audience and globally.

I hope that that's a phrase that is limited to the U.S. and that others would not say that, especially for some of our global colleagues. But it's just, I don't know how that got started, but not in a good way. Yeah, yeah. I wish we did know the origins on that. I do hear a lot of like BD folks, sales, like to your point, you know, I did. So because it is very deal related, you know, but yeah, that one is a cringe. Well, I'm looking it up. Okay.

There you go. Live Googling. Yeah. Live Googling. So NPR covered this about 10 years ago, which is helpful. Thank you, NPR. So the expression origin originated in feudal Japanese times and referred to the practice of proving that no weapons were hidden within the folds of clothing. So to show you, I'm not hiding

anything. Here's my wiener. Oh my gosh. Well, that's true. What are they wearing underneath? That's what I'm saying. Like I have no weapons, but here's my wiener. I love, I love when you do a Google search and it's, you know, the Google. People also ask, number one question, is it okay to say open the kimono? No. It's not. These words are dripping with misogyny and racism. I will agree with you, Google. But it's another thing, like in the workplace, like you're not in futile times.

And so you don't need to say that about your business deal or your conversation. Yeah. And if you felt the need to, you could just go into a meeting and say, I have no weapons. I have no weapons on me. I come in peace. I worry about the death protest too much. I hadn't even thought about that. Well, now I'm concerned. about being in office and returning to office. You know, returning to office is one of those very controversial things here in our post-ish COVID times, right? Everyone's confused on like how to talk about an endemic. But, you know, now what do we do? We've got people all over the place. And so are you all hearing from folks in your communities or workplaces about returning to office? Yes, we actually had quite a few Betsties reach out to us after season one and ask us to cover

returning to the office and what our thoughts were. And I think all three of us on our social channels have probably mentioned return to office and, you know, what we think about it and the bullshit. But, you know, I will say I've spent the last 10, 11 years in healthcare, right? So healthcare is typically something that people obviously have to be present, right? Because we're seeing patients and whatnot. But what about those supporting roles?

So I'm lucky enough right now that I have a hybrid role that I'm able to still go into the office for those face-to-face connections, but I'm also able to do the majority of my work at home. And truthfully, that's where I thrive. I'm a natural extrovert. I love being around people. People do be people in a lot though. They keep me busy. People be people in. But I really do enjoy going into the office those one to two days a week. But I also love my work from home days and work from home days. I'm chained to my computer a lot longer than being in the office. And I feel like I'm so much more productive actually at home than I am in the office because in the office you get

stopped. You're going to the bathroom, you're going to get lunch and you get stopped by an employee who's like, hey, I had a question about my benefits or hey, I never got my vision ID card or whatever it is, right? So I think hybrid is the best of both worlds for me personally, but I don't understand what the big push is other than them having a 20-year lease on a giant corporate building that now is remaining empty. So you make a very important point there when you said that's what works best for you. And what I see is that companies love to focus on the D of D-E-I-B. I know. I saw y'all's look. You're like, where are you going with this?

Got my attention. Focus on the D. I know. I know. Focus it on the D. But they do. And they very seldom focus on the I, which I'm like, it always starts with inclusivity for me personally. Right. So that's an excellent point that you need that connection. You need those interactions. You work faster, more effectively and efficient that way. I am the opposite of Jamie in that sense. I love people and people be people and I enjoy that. But I'm just I'm an introvert. Right. And so it's a lot of acting. It's a lot of like physical and emotional effort for me to be around people that much without like a quiet place for me to go to and just like, let me let me reenergize real quick by myself. And so it's all about inclusivity for me. If your role allows for you to be able to work remotely and you can, meaning like you can be productive, then why not? Right. To your final point there. Well, what's the deal? Right. Why not? Well, and I think part of it and part of

what I've heard frequently is, you know, I'm returning to the office and I sit around on video calls all day. And I think return to office, one of the reasons I think it gets a lot of attention is there are so many perspectives because you're acting like it's such an effort to do something that a lot of the people that our economy relies the most on have been doing this day in and day out and with a lot less complaints than some of those. And so I think recognizing the sacrifices. And so some of this returned office is realizing what those experiences are like for a lot of people that work in jobs that don't get that much respect. That being said, just because some people have to do jobs in person should not mean that everyone should because it's all the same. Like I do think having executives at companies or leaders at companies that have in-person is

showing up and showing that and working alongside those, I do think is a level of respect that's missing sometimes in the workplace. that are parents is sometimes it's not easy to find after-school programs that are affordable or realistic or school shuts down because it's cold. In offices, we'll say, well, we need you to come to the office. Well, okay, well, Mary Poppins, unfortunately, is not sitting around the corner just waiting to come in through my window or chimney or whatever. It's the people's realities. And so sometimes it's thinking about what is that reality like? And if you just have people come just to be on video calls, well, that is going to be a quick ticket to send them out. And so I know Jamie had posted at this point a couple weeks ago about videos, return to

work. And it was a theme you've seen in a lot. And the theme was kind of jokey jokey from a company talking about return to work. And then it said, this is not a negotiation. And my caution to that is this is not a negotiation. And my caution to that is it absolutely is a negotiation. It may not be a in-person negotiation, but what that negotiation looks like is if you put your feet in the sand and tell people exactly what it's going to be like without explaining a why that people can understand, then they are going to negotiate against

you by giving you their resignation and going somewhere else. And so those actions have consequences. And so I think in person, there is some value to being in person. That doesn't always have to be the two days a week, three days a week, five days a week, those type of rigid levels, but having some occasional in-person interaction. We're giving people that opportunity to have a budget to go to a co-working space. Thinking about some of those options to be more flexible, I do think it can be helpful because if you just say it flat out without the why, you're going to lose people. Then make sure that those interactions are valuable. You know what I mean? To your point about just coming in and everyone being on Zoom calls and

nobody talking and the office is set up where it's all segmented. There's no collective communal space. I mean, you need to decide what it is you're trying to accomplish culturally within your organization. And that's the piece that I see missing is that people don't have that strategy or game plan behind who are we as an organization? What are our values? What is our culture? Right. So then at that point, they just look like they're dictators and doing command and control. And so that's what I see with a lot of leaders where they may have people that report to them that could easily at least be in a hybrid or be fully remotely, and they deny that access to be able to work remotely. It's a control thing, in my opinion. It is the leader justifying their existence and their job, right? It's a job security action. That's what

I've seen like multiple times happen, you know, and especially when from top down, they say, oh, yeah, you can do this. And their peers, their leader peers are doing it with their teams. And then you just have this one holdout. It's like, oh, my gosh, what is going on? You know, but I see that a lot where it's really this kind of controlling command control. I feel insecure as a leader. I don't want to have to manage remote people. I, I, I, I, I, right. How the leader talks. This is uncomfortable for me. And I think what's frustrating as well is a lot of the leaders that are demanding return to the office always base it on productivity. And I'm like, great, show me the numbers, you know, show me how these employees are

not productive at home as opposed to when they were in 2019 or, you know, show me the measurement because I don't believe that. Do some employees that do work from home maybe not are the best discipline? Sure, maybe. But I would dare to say that the vast majority of work from home employees are doing their job. They're probably working longer

because they don't have to sit in a commute with traffic and childcare, you add that childcare piece. And it actually reminded me in 2020, I was actually working at a nonprofit health care clinic and I was the only HR person and schools abruptly shut down. But I had to be at work because we were open and it was all C-suite had to be at work. Like that was that was what was happening. We did not have choices. So the juggling of trying to find care for my child,

I was lucky that my little one had daycare still open, but just literally it was piecemeal. One grandma got him two days a week. The other grandma got him, like she had to spend the night because she lives quite far. I mean, it was just, to think that even if I just had one day that I could have worked from home in a week,

that would have solved so much problems, but it was hell bent on everyone had to be in the building. But that also goes to show, think about the nurses and the doctors that didn't have that luxury. I didn't either, but you know what I mean? That didn't have that luxury. I didn't either, but you know what I mean? Like that didn't have that luxury. They had to be there. They were swabbing people in cars for COVID. And I just, I think back to that. And then, you know, you sit on Zoom's calls while you're in this office and then you notice where the executive is, like from their vacation home in Italy or something. And I'm like, what? I think it is this level of respect. Again, thinking about a lot of the experiences of what it's like and return to office, I think just gives a small peek into that. For a lot of people that

really bear a lot of the burdens and expectations on our society, you will be there, but there's also not options for reasonable childcare or your kids get out of school at two. So hopefully they can mind themselves, but we're gonna judge you for if they just sit on screen time. I mean, it opens up a lot of complex issues. But one of the things I think HR can do to help in these conversations is to bring this sense and this conduit

between business goals. Okay, your goal is productivity, important goal. We all wanna have jobs. We'd like to hire more people. We'd like to get bonuses, fantastic. But We all want to have jobs. We'd like to hire more people. We'd like to get bonuses. Fantastic. But having those questions to say, okay, specifically, how are we going to explain to employees how this makes people productive? And what are options?

And what are ways that we instead can have conversations rather than one-way mandates? So telling employees, literally saying, you know, we want to have productivity as a business and explaining we want people to have jobs. We'd like to be able to hire more people and to pay bonuses. And it's important that employees do get the benefit when things increase. But to ask people, part of it is productivity. Candidly, as an executive, I have this concern. That's probably not a real concern. So I challenge employees to tell me and give people a truly anonymous, and we'll get more into that in a future episode, but getting people's opinions

and inviting people to have conversations to say, what is it like? And what do I not know? And what are we not thinking about? Because if you can open those up and take those into consideration, and then when you have whatever that decision looks like, you're never, everybody in HR and generally at work is going to know you can't please everybody. But by showing people, you're actually taking a consideration. And in saying, you know, this is what we thought about. We actually changed to this because of X. In HR and, you know, internal communications can help because people just want to feel like you have a sneak peek about what their life is like and a respect for them. And so HR can help to facilitate those and whatever you come up with and thinking about that, like, are you giving people

equipment? And when you explain that, is it to say, like, we want this, you know, to be productive? I mean, because the productivity, the people that are at home that are not productive are likewise in the office and arguably even less productive because they're pissed and they're, you know, they may be in their computer, but they're playing solitaire or Roblox, whatever, whatever that came. But I think that's something HR can do is to think about how you can just simply put, say to leadership, I want to get ahead of it and practically what are employees going to say and how can we actually consider their opinions so that we're not having turnover and people to leave because they don't feel like we're listening. Another thing HR can do, and it's something that I love to do, is really connect that top level leadership to the people as much as possible.

And what I mean by that is that I have had so many leaders that are just completely out of touch with their workforce. Some not even knowing what our starting rate is, right? I mean, they don't know like how, quote, little in that particular job people are actually getting paid. And it's so important to make sure that you're advocating for the workforce in that way, because you will have your leadership teams make these sweeping decisions like no remote work, know this, know that, starting meetings at like 6 a.m. when people have kids, right? Because a lot of times, okay, when we look at, especially American businesses, that's what I'm going to speak to, the folks that are making those decisions, their kids are growing out of the house. They may have a spouse that works at home so that they can do that. I mean, you know what I'm saying? So they're not, I'd say, the average worker, air quotes. And so they forget that people have to do carpools or people have children that still are in school or whatever. And so reminders of that can be so powerful and hopefully light bulb moments for your leaders.

And I know that sounds trite, but just the look of shock I've had on executives' faces when I'm like, you realize people have kids, right? Or you realize, you know. Just having that, giving your employees the flexibility. Like one thing I love to do is I love to take my boys to school every day. That means that I'm probably not going to get to work till 830, 9 o'clock. I put my commute on my calendar so people know. I can always take a phone call, but I'm not going to probably be very – I can even be on a meeting, but I'm going to be in the car and I'm going to be driving because I have a good hour drive to work every, well, when I do go in. So it's also just being flexible with people and, you know, working in healthcare. Well, you might have appointments starting at eight, but remember, maybe we need to be flexible with our employees because of childcare or

what have you, you know, and just being flexible with their personal life. And this is a job. Yeah. Having the conversations. What are we not thinking about? What are questions you have? But also telling the managers that these employees report to in cascading or having these ripple effects because, like, I was at a holiday event in December during, you know, of course,

the schedule, like, 1245 to 105. Okay, great. So I'm going, I now have my own business. And so I can schedule calls around that. I will talk to people and I will say, oh, I feel so lucky to be able to come. It shouldn't be a matter of luck to be present. And it's not just a thing with kids. It is for people's self-care, people's mental health appointments, people's workout, people that just need a break from things and read a book over lunchtime. But this problem is that, as we've talked about, assumptions. You assume people know what they can do, or you assume that if people are taking time off, that shows that

they're not committed. One thing that I think the ripple effect, if you're having people come to return to the office, people are not coming back with the mindset that they were in February 2020. We've all thought about things. We've all thought about life a lot differently. And when I looked around and saw people there and I heard someone say, well, my boss doesn't know I'm here. And I said, how fucked up that you have to, something that matters, that is a moment that you're going to remember this more than whatever conference call you're missing missing is that people feel like they have to hide these aspects of it. And I get it. But if you think about that, whether you're in HR or management, how can we have people not feel like they have to hide things? Again, nobody has to disclose, I'm going to a mental health appointment. But if you have a leader that talks about these things and says, I have, I've, I've, if they feel to the extent they feel comfortable, I've, I actually go to therapy to like. I've gone two o'clock on Thursdays.

I mean, eyes open. Like the concept that people talk about this with complete lack of shame, but that can make a be affected by letting people take this care about themselves, but just thinking about as a leader, what you want to, the impact you want to have people's lives and giving them that permission. Yeah. Let's allow people to bring them their whole selves to the workplace, right? Yeah. Open that kimono. I don't want, but let's have a closed kimono. Just a closed robe. Let's do a closed robe okay all right so reminder we do have a hard stop and so let's shift gears now into questions and comments do you all have any questions and comments i just have a comment sure i i'm really um that employee that is not necessarily a jack of all trades. I'm more of the junk drawer employee.

Yeah, I call it junk drawer. I'm a junk drawer. Well, that lends to my comment, which is return to office. If you've ever gone and taken over like a cubicle or an office of someone and open their drawer, it will destroy your faith in humanity. Like, I mean, the food, I opened one and I was like, like cigarette butts, which had like, oh my God, this is not my home state of Kentucky in 1990, but like cigarette butts, ants, like ants aplenty. And like the stuff that you will find in your, the scabs. Yeah, I did a TikTok actually semi-recently about this.

And I asked Humorous Resources' story, you know, what is the craziest things? And like someone said an old breast implant. Oh my God. I thought you were going to say breast pump. And I was like, no, I get that. No, no, breast implant. Like just one singular. How would you...

What? Yeah. I hope they didn't touch it because I feel like someone may have used that for ill use. That's on whoever the manager or the leader is for that new person coming in. I pride myself on that. I'm going to make sure your shit's clean before you come.

Like, hello, welcome, here's an old breast implant. But the data shows people aren't moving into management. I mean, it should be on people that are leaving. the manager right there's a double check yes but let's be honest some people have to leave abruptly fair point fair point people be people in people people be people in in the shit that people have in their office drawers like i was shocked some of the things like a lot of bras and underwear and I'm like I get it

well if like your employment has maybe a gym or you're going on a date after but a little weird to keep it at work but you know I mean in the drawer like I can

you know like I can understand like having a gym bag and like throwing it in there. But like, oh, yeah. And also leaving it for the next employee. I think people forget, you know. Or to your point, they had to abruptly leave because they have a drawer full of panties. They opened their kimono. See, it's cringy. It is cringy. Literally physically shuddering.

All right, Leigh, what's your question or comment? Well, not a question, but a quick comment. And that is, do not take advice from someone you do not want to be. Short and sweet, right? Because I have a lot of assholes give me advice. And I'm just like, you are wasting your breath because I am barely listening. I don't want to emulate you. I'm just like, you are wasting your breath because I am barely listening. I don't want to emulate you. I never want to be you, but it's something toxic bosses love to do, right?

They do. They do. That is amazing. Don't try to emulate them either. It's, you know, the trying to be that person. That is, that is, I'm going to have to sit with that for a little bit. I need to write that down. Where's the girl on TikTok where she gets the notebook out? Starts writing at the post office. Okay. Y'all at never mind you know i don't know yeah he doesn't he doesn't follow anyone she doesn't she doesn't follow us but it's all right one of these days i'm not in the social that's a season 17 yeah maybe maybe by season 17 she'll follow us all right uh ashley any questions or comments? I already asked mine.

My comment. My comment on it. I did mine too. I don't have anything. I'm not a boner of substance. Oh my gosh. Have I not been paying attention during this meeting? Is it like a real meeting now?

Has it turned into a real meeting? It's a real meeting. We're going to call on you and you're going to panic and repeat the thing we just said three minutes before. No, for real. I'm a drunk dork. No. Oh, yeah. And I was like drunk dork, Chloe. Oh, yeah. And I was like, yeah, me too.

Keep it real. Oh, my God. It's like this has turned into a real meeting now. It is. Because I like blacked out at some point. Me too. It's like a company happy hour meeting wrapped all in one. I'm like, wow, it's come full circle now.

Well, to that point, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of HR Besties.